About this book:

*Return and Remembrance* explores the complex transnational networks of the African diaspora, focusing on the interlocking processes of literal and symbolic return and the diverse practices of cultural memory. The book moves beyond a singular narrative of origin, instead tracing how displacement, enslavement, and migration have forged a "Black Atlantic" defined by creative resilience. Through a multi-sited approach, it examines how memory is preserved and contested across various mediums, including oral histories, religious rituals, music, visual arts, and the digital sphere.

The text delves deeply into the institutional and legal structures that shape diasporic identity, particularly the "museum question" regarding the restitution of looted artifacts and the politics of citizenship and naming. It highlights the role of specific return settlements like Liberia and Sierra Leone as historical laboratories of belonging, while also examining the Lusophone and Hispanic links that define Afro-Latin American experiences. Throughout these chapters, the book emphasizes the gendered nature of memory, noting how women’s kinship and care networks have functioned as essential, though often unacknowledged, infrastructures for cultural survival.

In its final sections, the book addresses contemporary and future challenges, such as the impact of climate change on coastal heritage and the role of digital platforms in fostering new forms of activism. It frames the work of artists, curators, and community collectives as a vital "art of repair" that mends historical fractures through creative intervention. Ultimately, the book presents the Atlantic not merely as a site of historical trauma but as a dynamic medium of ongoing connection, where policy, law, and ritual converge to negotiate the unfinished business of justice and belonging.

What You'll Find Inside:

• The book explores return and remembrance as interlocking processes shaping how African diasporic communities imagine their pasts and futures across the Atlantic World.
• It traces historical routes from the Middle Passage through nineteenth-century return settlements to modern mobilities like citizenship-by-descent and heritage tourism.
• Memory politics are examined as communities negotiate identity through contested narratives in archives, monuments, museums, and digital spaces.
• Cultural forms including music, visual arts, language, and religion serve as vital conduits for transatlantic connection and remembrance.
• Contemporary issues such as heritage tourism economies, digital diasporas, climate change impacts, and reparative policies are analyzed as evolving sites of return and remembrance.

Who's It For:

This book is designed for scholars, graduate students, and researchers in African diaspora studies, Atlantic history, postcolonial studies, and cultural anthropology. It will also be valuable for museum professionals, cultural heritage workers, policymakers involved in restitution and repatriation initiatives, and activists engaged in racial justice and reparations movements who seek interdisciplinary frameworks for understanding the ongoing work of memory and return across the Atlantic World.